I feel a total idiot. Having played NWN years and years ago I had no problem in the game at all. I just downloaded NWN Diamond and I cannot even get to the pits in the prison: even when my henchman does not charge off like a complete twit and pulls 10 prisoners, we still get beaten to a pulp by the first mini-boss. I've tried monk, rogue, ranger, but no joy at all.
Has the difficulty of this game increased by so much? I seem to think I used to solo this without henchmen even, just sneaking down the hallways and taking out prisoners one by one, but now I inevitably get rushed by a zerg -- they seem telepathic almost.

Any suggestions?

What level are you?

What class(es) are you?

What's your stat array?

What items are you using?

What feats/skills do you have?

WEll as I said, I've tried Monk and Ranger and Rogue so far. level by the time you arrive at the prison, if you go straight there from the academy would be 3-4 by the time you have cleared the streets of the peninsula.

Stats? not exactly min-maxing, but I put most points in the relevant skills, so around 16. Monk uses fists, ranger bows, rogue short bow and short sword. At that low level there's not much to be had in equipment, due to affordability issues.

One of my problems is that the henchmen behave like complete idiots, rushing in even when you tell them to stay close, and pulling in a zerg of 10+ prisoners. Only a couple of times have I managed to clear most of the ground floor up to the first serious mini boss, but then he has quite a squadron hiding in the tunnel behind him and nothing I can see that I can do about THAT. Once they come streaming out, it's game over.

Not been able to take him down yet, with the rogue or with the monk henchman. He slaughters them, and he slaughters my character. One shot, quite often.

If there's a less dangerous area to level up beforehand, that would be handy I think.

It sounds like the biggest issue is tactics and getting swarmed by groups.

Yes. NWN Henchmen are total idiots. Use the radial menu to issue "Stand your ground" command to them a lot to keep them behind you when exploring new areas. That way you can edge into an area and do a quick look without invoking a swarm, and maybe use your bow to pull a couple to you, then run back to your henchman and knock them off easily in smaller numbers (dont' forget to issue an "attack nearest" then).

Low levels are always hard in DnD games. But a couple of points.

It is much harder for Dex fighters early on and that likely includes rogues/monks and probably your ranger from the sound of it. Bows also suck in NWN.

A High Strength fighter (17 can be a good start) is probably your best be if getting back into NWN. Getting Power Attack and Cleave ASAP is good as the payoff is never better than at low levels when you have only 1 attack.

It looks like you've gravitated to all the weakest possible character builds. Monks should definitely be avoided by beginners; they're not as bad as they are in pen and paper, but they're still a very unforgiving class with very meager offensive capabilities. Archery is a very weak combat style, and counter-intuitively Rangers aren't particularly good at it (the Fighter is actually the best archery class by a fairly significant margin). A dexterity-based Rogue is a very weak combat class, and any time he can't get sneak attacks he'll basically be impotent in combat.

Strength-based melee combat is definitely the best approach for a beginner. I personally recommend Rogue/Fighter multiclass, since it gets you the skills and versatility of the Rogue with the combat power of the Fighter. It's just a nice balance with the two classes complementing each other well.

In what way is fighter more suitable for archery than ranger, apart from getting more feats? While it's true that rangers don't have any dedicated archery advantages fighters don't have, I still think a few things about rangers make them better archers, if ever so slightly:
-access to Cat's Grace spell
-animal companions and summons that can keep opponents at bay while you shoot at them
I agree that these benefits are not that significant. So what makes a fighter a better archer? Probably not weapon specialization?

Before I go any further - because I've been chewed out on this before - we're talking about low-level play here. For chapter 1 of the OC it's 3rd-7th level basically. Rangers don't get Cat's Grace at these levels and won't get the animal companion until towards the end of the chapter. The extra feats are much more important at low levels since feats are tighter, and the damage boost from weapon specialization is highly significant since you're unlikely to have better than a +1 weapon at this point, so +2 damage is a fairly significant chunk.

The Ranger becomes much better if we're talking high-level play. Feats become so plentiful that the Fighter's edge doesn't matter as much, the favored enemy bonus and number of favored enemies climbs very high so Rangers get a substantial bonus on a fairly regular basis, and any advantage from weapon specialization is drowned out by powerful magical equipment. Low levels are quite the opposite story and boring stuff like "more feats" and "+2 damage" is extremely attractive.

While this has gone completely off topic, I would say high level Bow fighting is nearly useless, without Arcane Archer, and AA works better with fighter (4-5 levels for EWS) than Ranger which needs high Ranger levels to benefit from things like FE bonuses and Bane of Enemies, and those ranger levels conflict with AA levels.

If you are set on playing a single-class rogue, then perhaps try setting traps. Lots of traps. If you can't find a lot of them, you can buy them from the merchant in the whorehouse, IIRC.

Also, aren't there acid bombs (?) you can throw? They're called something like that anyway. Small area of effect but not bad for a low level PC.

Archery's main advantage is ranged attacks. It works best when you can find yourself some high ground that enemies cannot get to that easily and shoot them down from there. Can't do that with a melee weapon. Archery is still quite useful on high levels even without such tactical positioning, since you can get additional few hits on an enemy before they engage you in melee, at which point you can swap weapons. Even though ranger might be a better archer at high levels, fighter is better for such a weapon swapping strategy, because they can easily spend some feats to specialize in a bow in addition to their melee weapon (favorite weapon, weapon specialization, improved critical, etc). Rangers, with their lower feat number, are probably better off spending them on other stuff.

I wouldn't say archery is bad. It simply fills a different niche than melee weapons. Its use should be supplementary or situation-dependant. Arcane Archers are the only ones who should use bows in almost every situation.

IMO, saying it is only for supplementary use, is the same as saying it's bad.

It's not a viable fighting style unless you are an AA.

But sure, if there is no way to hit something, pull out a bow. I would often just throw a stack of decent darts in my fighter inventory to cover the VERY rare situation when ranged is useful.

Even with the large bonuses you get from Arcane Archer, a fighter will still do more damage with a melee weapon.

On my AA HOTU play-through I still pulled out a big two handed weapon to cut through a certain Boss's heavy DR, because arrow damage is so weak.

Player Wizard or Sorcerer; get the Panther familiar.

Get Barbarian follower.

Blast anything that gets past them.

Oh, and yes, "Stand your ground" and "Follow me" are also part of MVP team.

Seriously, there can be enemies a relatively short ways away, but if they're not in a pre-defined radius? Rest and get all your spells back. It'll take weeks to clear the city...But time is essentially meaningless for the entire city arc. I dunno about the rest, because I get bored. The MQ is...Not well-written.

Plus, wands and such.

Not that you really need all that many spells, with a Barbarian and Rogue killing most of what gets in your way.

Wizard and Sorcerer do take more planning, though.

quick companion keystrokes

follow me = v e e
stop / stand = v w x
attack nearest = v w e
guard me = v w f

Someone at bioware did some QA and figured out that these valuable shouts should be accessible with simple commands.

A distinction should be made between guard and attack. Guard seems to have some lag time but the ai seems better. Attack should be issued during battle and the hench's response is immediate- just start swinging at the first thing in reach. Follow (vee) forces disengagement and can serve as a retreat.

In chapter 1 there are 100% lethal traps on some chests. One tactic is to sacrifice a companion to trigger traps. Fire on the chest at range and issue v w e, and they will bravely attack the object.

Really makes you think, doesn't it!

:D

Rogue is the game's underrated archer extraordinaire, in my opinion. Teamwork may be necessary but those sneak attacks, wow.

NWN really has limited use of distance, and closing time negligible, limiting the advantage of range weapons to obscure cases where enemies are on platforms, you can't immediately reach. IOW almost never.


Everything else you just kill quicker by pulling out your melee weapon and charging, and if you try to use a bow you get charged and you give away attacks of opportunity to your enemies as well.

Ranged just sucks in NWN.